In everyones traning jouney, the vital steps that 90% of people forget to make is they don't decide on what their purpose is.
the general population, the vast majority just want to be healthy and thats perfectly fine. Increasing their level of activity with have tremendous positive effects on their body and mind. But for those a bit more dedicated the may have goals that extend a bit further out than being healthy. Some people actualy desire to be athletic.
Whats the difference?
Being fit and active, and being athletic are not the same thing. Just because you can run 10K doesn't make you athletic, it certainly makes you fit though. Athletic training is much more intense, it requires the person to actually know how their body works, know the intricacies of their sport and how to efficiently expend their energy to get the most bang for their buck.
How to train like an athlete?
Training like an athlete has nothing to do with running more, or lifting heavier weights. To train like an athlete you need to break down your training into individual components, learn the "Shapes", train the specific muscles fibres to become more explosive. This is why we utilise actual Strength and Conditioning coaches for athlets, as opposed to a general PT.
What kind of exercises might you do?
When we start to train like an athlete, we begin to train with "intent". We aren't just looking to lift that weight, we want to lift the weight with explosive power. For example a runner doing a squat, on the upwards motion the runner wil lbe looking to push up so hard that they not only return to a standing position but they actually leave the ground.
We utilise a lot of single limb exercises. Again with our runner, we won't do a 2 legged squat, we will squat on 1 leg to ensure that each limb is equally as strong as the othe rand there isn't an imbalance.
The same is with swimming, a bench press is useless, but if we start to isolate each arm with flys and things where 1 arm can't compensate for the others weakness then it will allow for much greater athletic performance.
I will probably follow this post with some exercises I utilise, and if people are interested I can provide some work outs and plans.
Take Care
Mike
Invictus Strength & Conditioning